Scientist in Thiruvananthapuram transmits message into the mind of a colleague 5,000 miles away in France's Strasbourg using brainwaves.

Brain-wave sensing machines have been used to 'telepathically' control everything from real-life helicopters to characters in a computer game. Now the technology has gone a step further by allowing someone in India to send an email to his colleague in France using nothing but the power of his mind.

A study published in PLOS One details how an international research team transmitted words from one person's brain to another by mapping electrical currents in the brain and the spine.

The researchers used electroencephalography (EEG) headsets to record electrical activity from neurons firing in the brain, and convert the words 'hola' and 'ciao' into binary, reports The Daily Mail.

In EEG, electrical currents in the brain are linked with different thoughts that are then fed into a computer interface. This computer analyses the signal and controls an action. In the latest study, published in PLOS One, researchers decided to replace the computer interface with another brain to receive the signals.